This is a three part stream of consciousness about having Asperger's Syndrome.
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PART 1:
She laid there on the bed in front of me and stared at me, gazing with those large green eyes. Deer-in-the-headlights. "I love you too." she replied, almost stunned. Earlier before I lied to her, "I love you." Every time I speak those words it seems as if she's shocked all over again, as if it were the first time I'd ever said it. She redressed in all her clothes but her glasses before she said another word. "Marriage?"
Please understand and believe me when I say that I'm not doing this for the physical benefits. I'm not doing this because I need someone to hold, no. The reason that we share the pleasures of each others' bodies is because she's the only one with whom I've ever been able to properly communicate. It's either I pretend to love her or I pretend to love no one. If I could engage myself in conversation with others, I'd pretend to love others all the same. I've never believed in love, just the evolutionary attraction that fools almost all human life.
If I could enter the lives of others, I would. There's a problem though. When I was young my parents had enrolled me in a preschool. Teachers would wonder why I would be so cold and refuse to interact with any of the other children. I didn't bother to argue though, I was too lost in thought. When I turned five years old, I started reading mystery novels. I became enamored. My parents would take me to the library and I'd find anything from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Harlan Coben (though I never found the latter quite appealing or thrilling with all the logical fallacies in his writing - I found it hard to suspend disbelief).
The time I began middle school was the worst. You'd expect readers with a curiosity to be praised in school. However, instead of refusing to interact with my peers and them reciprocating the favor, they decided it would be best to make me the end of any and every joke. If one obnoxious (they all were) and insignificant little bastard had been yelled at or grounded for his or her own poor choices, I'd be the one humiliated in an effort to regain a sense of jurisdiction if not over his or her life then at least someone else's. They would peel bananas and shove them in my face, shoot spitballs at my head, and try to shove me around.
Rather, one person only tried to shove me around once. Only once.
While I was in the bathroom, the poor little revolting piece of... art... had raised his arms and intended to grab me by the shirt with both of his hands. I reached up and grabbed his wrists, twisted them as hard as I could and then shoved him on the ground. I jumped on top of his chest and started punching repeatedly, angered blind, in his face. I heard him scream, I heard him squeal, but nothing really mattered to me. This little bastard deserved this fate. I don't remember anything that happened after that though.
What I do remember next though was being locked in a room. The walls were painted sterile colors and the clothing I wore was a gown not of my own. My mother visited me day and night and swore she'd never leave. She was scared for me. The worst that ended up happening was that I was put into a special school for kids that can't function in a normal public school.
The best that happened to me during that time though was Alexandra. I still remember that first day I met her in the hospital. She walked upon my floor and up to my bedside. Shy, nervous, she held her mother's hand and said "I heard what you've done. I heard you need help. You can always talk to me." She had been going to school with me, but I never shared a word with her before. She was timid because she was autistic, too (I heard her mother say to mine). Maybe she knew how I felt.
She held up a picture of the boy on her phone that must have been circulating the school. His nose was crooked and his face bloody. He had black eyes and his teeth seemed all disfigured and many of them missing. "They were just his baby teeth," she said. "He'll be fine. I forgive you, M. I forgive you."
My parents had dismissed my early diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome with hype from the media leading to over-diagnosing of the disorder. I wasn't helping their case by any of those actions. At that moment, they finally accepted who I am. I always accepted who I am.
